ALTHOUGH the selection of only a few
of the numerous variants of 'Tom Tit Tot' relieves us from comment on
sundry differences in detail between the whole of them, there are points
of interest which call for notice before we advance to the central idea
of the story. Some are of little moment, as where, in the Lorraine variant,
the devil's age, instead of his name, has to be guessed to secure quittance
from the bargain. Others,. as in the example of the helpful bird in the
Eastern story, would carry us into the wide, and fascinating subject of
barbaric belief in community between man and all living things beneath
him. Of the remainder, three claim comment--the superstitions about iron,
the incidents of spinning, and of outwitting the demon or other maliceful
agent.

(a) SUPERSTITIONS ABOUT IRON

The reference to iron is one among other examples of incidental features
in folk-tales which not only evidence their antiquity, but throw light
on the customs and beliefs embodied in them, which otherwise would remain
obscure. The unlettered are conservative, both from fear and the power
of tradition. The devil may have been 'the first Whig,' which, nowadays,
would spell Radical, but whoever, whether man or fiend, challenged authority
to produce its credentials, has that distinction. Things new or unusual,
being unknown, are objects of dread in the degree that mystery invests
them; and this explains, among other matters, the old ideas which attached
to iron, and the retention of stone instruments for sacred rites and ceremonies,
as, for example, of flint knives, in mummy-incision, among the ancient
Egyptians; and among the Jews in circumcision; of obsidian or other stone
sacrificial knives among the Mexicans; while in Scotland, in making the
clavie, a kind of Yuletide fire-wheel, a stone hammer was used. Witches
and fairies are creations of the Stone Age; the peasant-folk see in the
delicately shaped flint arrow-heads of our Neolithic forerunners the 'elf-darts'
wherewith the 'good people' maim men and cattle. And the dread with which
these creatures are believed to regard iron explains its widespread use
as a charm against them. Old Aubrey says that 'a Horse-shoe nailed on
the threshold of the dore is yet in fashion, and nowhere more than in
London. It ought (Mr. Lilly [a]
says) to be a Horse-shoe that one finds by chance on the road. The end
of it is to prevent the power of witches that come into your house. So
in Germany the common people doe naile such an Horse-shoe on the threshold
of the doore. So neere the mainmast in ships.' [b]
As many a stable-door and mainmast testify, the nailing of horse-shoes
to 'keep off the pixies,' and, conversely, to bring luck to farmer and
sailor, thrives to this day. The magical power of iron is shown in the
hero-legends wherein, for example, King Arthur's wonder-working sword
Excalibur plays part, while homelier illustrations are given in the use
of iron tongs or scissors to protect a new-born babe from being stolen
by the fairies. Among the Kols of India, when a child is born, the umbilical
cord is cut and buried in the room, and over it a fire is lit in an earthen
pot, into which a bit of iron is put, as a protection against evil spirits
who may assail mother or infant [c]
In county Donegal, when churning is started, the tongs are put in the
fire, or a piece of heated iron is put under the chum, and kept there
till the work is finished. [d]The
Hindus consider it unlucky to visit the sick at night, lest some prowling
demon follow the visitor and then haunt the invalid. But if a piece of
iron be taken, the demon thinks that his hair may be cut therewith, whereby
he becomes enslaved; so he keeps clear. The name of the metal is itself
an effective charm. In Arab belief the zdba'ah or sand-whirlwind, which
sweeps, pillar-like, across the land, is due to the flight of a jinnee,
and therefore, when its approach is seen, one of the charms uttered is,
'Iron, thou unlucky,' because the very name is believed to drive the jinn
away. [e] The aborigines of
Victoria thought that dust-storms were due to Kootchee, the Australian
evil spirit, and the more daring among them would throw boomerangs at
these blinding whirlwinds. [f]

(b) WOMAN AS SPINSTER AND FARMER

Wellnigh all the heroines in the 'Tom Tit Tot' group are set the task
of spinning, in a magic space of time, a large quantity of flax, or, as
in the Swedish variant, the still harder task of spinning straw into gold,
and so forth. Prominence is therefore given to the wheel and distaff as
woman's typical occupation. The old and now discredited school of interpreters,
represented in this country chiefly by Professor Max Muller and Sir George
W. Cox, which resolved every myth and folk-tale, and occasionally even
history itself, [g] into solar
elements, explains the spinning incident as the dawn-maiden, be she Penelope
or the miller's daughter, weaving 'her robe of clouds.' [h]
But a more sober school of interpretation is, like wisdom, 'justified
of its children.' That was a relatively advanced stage in human progress
'when Adam delved and Eve span,' because among barbaric people the woman
does both. War and the chase fill the lives of men; and the work of handling
both spade and spindle falls to the women. They were the first agriculturists,
and over a wide area of the arable earth they still 'hold the field.'
While the man was fighting or chasing the coveted game, the woman was
grubbing up roots and pounding seeds or nuts to keep hunger from the hut,
round whose clearing she learned to sow the cereal and plant the fruit-tree.
In East Africa she tills the soil, tends the cattle, and does the bartering;
[i]among the Niam-Niam the
men devote themselves to hunting, and leave the cultivation of the soil
to the women, who, among the Monbuttoo, do all the husbandry from hoeing
to harvest. [j]Herodotus (Book
iv. 6) says of the Thracians that 'they accounted idleness as the most
honourable thing, and to be a tiller of the ground the most dishonourable.'
Among the ancient Peruvians, farm-work fell entirely to the womenfolk,
while the rudest form of agriculture is found among the squaws of Central
California, who use their fingers as hoes, rubbing the earth to powder
between their hands. [k] In
modern Palestine, although the men do the ploughing, the women follow
to drop the seed into the furrows; and in the Sonneberg district, in Germany,
and indeed throughout Europe, the preparation, planting, and sowing, the
harvesting and thrashing, are largely done by women. It is, therefore,
an error to speak of fieldwork by woman as a sign of her degradation;
for wherever it now exists, although often evidencing man's laziness or
brutality, it is a survival of primitive conditions when everything domestic
devolved on the female. Among the indoor duties were the keeping of the
hearth and weaving. With the long grass as primitive broom, woman tidied
the house, and with the primitive spindle-stick she twisted the plant-fibres
into yarn. The stone spindle-whorls found among other relics of early
Neolithic deposits witness to the high antiquity of an art which ultimately
became, both in symbol and language, the type of woman's work.[l] How much this all bears on her long foremost place
in social organisation, lies beyond our province to deal with. But, as
related to what follows, it must be borne in mind that the roots of social
unity lie in blood-relationship between mother and offspring rather than
between father and offspring. For in the unsettled conditions of barbaric
life, when intercourse between the sexes was irregular--the absence or
fitful movements of the men leaving the care of home and children to the
women,--he was a wise father who knew his own child. Birth and the early
nourishment of offspring were the great factors, and hence not only arose
the tie of blood-relationship through the mother but the tracing of descent
along the female line both being grouped under what is known as 'mother-right.'
Thus, to quote from an able essay by Mr. Karl Pearson on a subject which
was originally dealt with some years ago by Bachofen, MacLennan, and other
students of ancient social groups, 'the mother would be al least the nominal
head of the family, the bearer of its traditions, its knowledge, and its
religion. Hence we should expect to find that the deities of a mother-right
group were female, and that the primitive goddesses were accompanied,
not by husband, but by child or brother. The husband and father being
insignificant or entirely absent, there would thus easily arise myths
of virgin and child, and brother and sister, deities. The goddess of the
group would naturally be served by a priestess rather than by a priest.
The woman, as depository of family custom and tribal lore, the wise woman,
the sibyl, the witch, would hand down to her daughters the knowledge of
the religious observances, of the power of herbs, the mother-lore in the
mother-tongue, possibly also in some form of symbol or rune, such as a
priestly caste love to enshroud their mysteries in. The symbols of these
goddesses would be the symbols of woman's work and woman's civilisation,--the
distaff, the pitchfork, and the broom, not the spear, the axe, and the
hammer.' [m] Herein lies the
key to the femininity of the larger number of corn and vegetable and spinning
deities, whether one or triune, 'the divine mothers who travel round and
visit houses, from whom mankind learned the occupations and arts
of housekeeping and husbandry, spinning, weaving, tending the hearth,
sowing and reaping.' [n] Ceres,
eat whose nod the wheat-field shakes,' to whom the corn-thief, by the
code of the Twelve Tables, was hanged as an offering; [o]Persephone, whom Demeter seeks sorrowing, to find
her with the upsprouting corn; Xilomen, the Mexican maize-goddess; Nirdu,
among the Teutons,--one and all subordinate to the mighty food-giving
Earth-mother, known by many names, Erda, Demeter, Pachamama, Dharitri,
but everywhere worshipped as the giver of life, whose motherhood, as among
the aboriginal Americans, was no mere figure of speech, but an article
of positive belief. [p]Naming
among hearth-goddesses only the Roman Vesta, the Greek Hestia, and the
Teutonic Hiodyn, our more immediate interest in this digression centres
round the spinning deities and wise women. The Greeks put spindle and
distaff in the hands of several of their goddesses, as of Artemis, Leto,
and Athène, the last-named recalling to mind the legend of Arachne's
challenge to the goddess to compete with her in the art of weaving. When
Arachne produced the cloth on which the loves of the gods were depicted,
Athène, enraged at finding no fault in it, tore the work to pieces,
whereupon the despairing Arachne hanged herself. But Athène loosened
the rope and changed it into a cobweb, Arachne becoming a spider. With
the Greek Fates, of whom, according to Hesiod, Clotho spins the web of
man's destiny, while Lachesis allots and Atropos cuts the thread, may
be compared the weaving of Helgi's fate by the three Norns of Teutonic
myth. Stretching the golden cord across the heaven, one Norn hid an end
of the thread eastward, another Norn hid an end westward, while a third
fastened it northward, the region between the eastern and western ends
falling to Helgi's share. The hieroglyph of the great Egyptian goddess
Neith was a shuttle, but she lies too remote for knowledge of the degree
in which she was a spinning deity. Not so our western Berchtá and
Holda, round whom, and their degraded forms in witches, many a legend
clusters. To Holda is assigned the cultivation of flax. She gives spindles
to industrious girls, and spins their reels full for them overnight, but
she burns or spoils the distaffs of lazy maidens. 'On her coming at Christmas,
all the distaffs are well stocked, and left standing for her; by Carnival,
when she turns homeward, all the spinning must be finished, and the staffs
kept out of her sight, otherwise her curse is on the disobedient. The
concealment of the implements shows the sacredness of her holy day as
a time of rest; [q] an idea
transferred, like many others, to the Virgin Mary, on whose holy days
spinning is forbidden. Berchta spoils whatever spinning she finds unfinished
the last day of the year, and, 'in the North, from Yule day to New Year's
day, neither wheel nor windlass must go round.' [r]In Thuringen, songs rose to Frau Holle as the women
dressed the flax; and in Lower Austria, Walpurg (whence the name of the
great witchgathering, Walpurgisnacht) goes round the fields at harvest-time
with a spindle to bless them. In Bavaria, 'flax will not thrive unless
it is sown by women, and this has to be done with strange ceremonies,
including the scattering over the field of the ashes of a fire made of
wood consecrated during matins. As high as the maids jump over the fires
on the hilltops on Midsummer Night, so high will the flax grow; but we
find also that as high as the bride springs from the table on her marriage
night, so high will the flax grow in that year.[s]
In Sweden no spinning is done on Thursday night, for fear of offending
the spirit who watches over the cattle and the crops. The twisting of
the thread and the downward pull of the spindle might affect the growth
of the corn. With which examples of ' sympathetic magic' we may couple
that given by Mr. Frazer. 'In the interior of Sumatra the rice is sown
by women who, in sowing, let their hair hang loose down their back, in
order that the rice may grow luxuriantly and have long stalks.' [t]
The day after Twelfth Day was called St. Distaff's Day, when spinning
was resumed, as in Herrick's lines -

'Partly work and partly play,
Ye must on St. Distaffe's day;
If the maids a-spinning go,
Burn the flax and fire the tow;
Give St. Distaffe all the right,
Then bid Christmas sport good night.' [u]

At Pergine in Tyrol, within recent years,
the friend of the bridegroom carried a spinning-wheel, with flax wound
round the distaff, in the wedding procession.

In these illustrations of the prominence
given to spinning in popular belief and ritual, no line has been drawn
between the part severally played by goddess and by witch. Earth supplies
the pattern of heavenly things, and therefore the gods and goddesses,
with the swarm of godlings, are for the most part mortals variously magnified,
whose deeds are the rejection of those which fill the life of man. As
for the witch, she may be regarded as the degraded and demon-inspired
representative of the priestess and medicine-woman, who still survive
in barbaric communities. Weatherwise, as all folk become who, with anxious
outlook on the harvest of both land and sea, watch the skies; skilled
in the virtue of simples through testing of the qualities of plants; wielder
of the pitchfork, the broom, and the distaff, tamer of the cat, as, in
his more adventurous life, man was tamer of the wolf, making the devourer
of the flock to be the guardian of the fold,--here are the elements out
of which was shaped the monstrous nightmare that terrorised mankind and
sent thousands to the gallows or the stake.

(c) THE GULLIBLE DEVIL

The stories of the gullibility of the devil are incidents in the history
of his decline and fall. Ridicule paved the way to a doom which comparative
mythology, in explaining him, has sealed. The ridicule followed his defeat
in his own realm of trickery and cunning by mortals. It was a sincere
belief among Scotch theologians of the seventeenth century that his cunning
so increased with age that he became more than a match for the cleverest.
Abercromby, in his Physick of the Soule, speaks of the devil 'as now almost
of six thousand years, and of great wily-ness and experience.' But man
is a combative animal, and the feeling that the devil was ever on the
watch to trip him up or outwit him, warmed rather than chilled his fighting
instinct. In the belief that the devil's favourite method was the bargaining
for both body and soul, that he might win both. The spirit of rivalry
in the game of huckstering was aroused, so that it became a contest of
'pull devil, pull baker,' as the saying goes. As the old legends show,
and as is also manifest in the 'Tom Tit Tot' group of stories, he is the
transformed giant or wizard with the superadded features of the fiend
whose aim it is to induce the unwary to agree to sell themselves to him
at the price of some fleeting advantage. Hence, when he is checkmated,
great is the joy at the discomfiture of the 'stupid beast,' as Pope Gregory
the Great called him. And of this defeat many a legend tells. In northern
saga, King Olaf desired to build a church greater than any yet seen, but
lacked the means to accomplish this. As he walked 'twixt hill and dale
he met a troll, who, when he heard the king's wish, offered to build the
church for him within a given time, stipulating that he was to have the
sun and moon, or Olaf himself, in payment. The king agreed; the church
was to be large enough to allow seven priests to preach in it at the same
time without disturbing one another, and ere long the structure was finished,
except the roof and spire. Perplexed at the bargain which he had made,
Olaf once more wandered over hill and dale, when suddenly he heard a child
cry from within a mountain, while a giantess quieted it with these words,
'Hush, hush, to-morrow comes thy father, Wind and Weather, home, bringing
both sun and moon, or saintly Olaf's self.' Overjoyed at this discovery,
the king turned home, arriving just in time to see the spire being fixed.
He cried out, 'Wind and Weather, thou hast set the spire askew,' when
instantly the giant fell off the ridge of the roof with a fearful crash,
and burst into a thousand pieces, which were nothing but flint stones.[v]
In Swedish legend a giant promises to build a church for the White Christ,
if Laurentius can find out his name, otherwise he must forfeit his eyes.
As in the Olaf story, the giantess is overheard hushing her crying child
and uttering the giant's name. [w]

In the great collection of Welsh manuscripts
published by Owen Jones in the beginning of this century, the story of
the battle of Achren precedes some verses. It was fought on account of
a white roebuck and a puppy which were of Hades. Amathaon, son of Don,
had caught them. Therefore he fought with Arawn, King of Hades, and there
was in the engagement on the side of Hades a man who could not be vanquished
unless his name could be discovered; while there was a woman on the other
side called Achren, whose name was to be found out before her side could
be vanquished. Gwydion, son of Don, guessed the man's name, and sang the
two following englyns. They are the verses alluded to, and they embody
Gwydion's guess as to the man's name, which he discovered to be Bran;
and as Bran, which means a 'crow,' is one of the appellations of the terrene
god, he may be supposed to have been a principal in the fight, that is
to say, he was probably the King of Hades himself.[x]
Cognate with the foregoing legend of the discomfiture of the devil is
that which tells how he agrees to build a house for a peasant at the price
of the man's soul, the contract to be null and void if the work is not
finished before cockcrow.

Just as day dawns, and as the devil is putting
on the last tile, the peasant wakens up ~a1l the roosters by imitating
their crowing. Or the devil helps to construct a bridge on condition that
he receives in payment the soul of the first thing that crosses it, and
while he is on the watch to seize his prize, a chamois or dog rushes past
him. In the well-known story of the shadowless man, the devil agrees to
take the hindmost in a race, and is able to grasp only the shadow of the
rearmost runner. The fiend is also befooled by one man, who whistles the
Gospel which he has bound himself not to say, and by the refusal of another
to carry out his bargain at the fall of the leaf because the foliage sculptured
on the church columns is still on the boughs. In the venerable street
play of ' Punch and Judy' the climax is reached when, after shamming defeat
by the devil, Punch seizes him and strings him to the gallows. The story
is told of some angry lookers-on stoning a showman who reversed the traditions
of the play by letting the devil carry off Punch. These examples, of which
a store may be gathered from Grimm, Thorpe, and other collectors, [y]
fall into line with the typical incident of the befooling and discomfiture
of the demon in one shape or sex and another in 'Tom Tit Tot' and his
variants, along the main track of which group of folk-tales we may now
advance without further digression.

[g] The siege of Troy is but a repetition
of the daily siege of the East by the solar powers that every evening
are robbed of their brightest treasures in the West.'--Max Muller's
Science of Language, vol ii. p. 515.Return to place in essay.